Saturday, January 16, 2010
We will be held to account for every sermon we hear?
Tim Challies posted three quotes from Puritans regarding the "responsibility" of those who hear a sermon. The three men quoted, Richard Baxter, Thomas Watson and David Clarkson all make the statement that we will be held to account for every sermon we hear preached so we better be paying attention. It sounds very pious but I don't know that it is supportable from Scripture. Check it out and let me know what you think.
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5 comments:
Well, just from a logical standpoint, I don't think that really works. There are some pretty heretical sermons out there, you know.
Outside of sermon review being a full time occupation, we're going to hell fer sure.
There is a way in which it is possible to view what they said as biblical. What follows rests on the concept of the watchman taught in the book of Ezekiel. If the watchman does not warn of the enemy approaching then he is guilty of the blood spilled in the coming battle. If he warned and the townsfolk ignored the warning he was free of their blood but each of them would take the consequences themselves.
So, as long as the pastors concerned were warning the hearers of the dangers they stood in of refusing to repent of their sins and worship the true God, they (the auditors) would be in danger of damnation and that consequence would be on their own head.
That would be true for every faithful pastor who had ever preached to them and each and every one of their sermons would speak against them in the final judgement.
Kaitiaki
The point of the quotes is not the responsibility of the pastor, it is on the responsibility of the listener.
Acts 17:11 talks about the Bereans "studying the scriptures each day to see if what Paul said was true."
Pastors are humans, just as their congregations are. I think it's a far stretch to say that everything they say is completely in sync with God's point of view (otherwise there wouldn't be so many differing opinions).
My take on the quotes and your mention of it is: if God is saying something through the sermon and we choose to ignore that, then we will be judged for that. If we take something we heard, study it against scripture and recognize it to be Him, then we are responsible to do something with that word.
The only other alternative I can see with the other side of it (that we study and decide that *wasn't* God speaking) wondering if there is an implication that we are responsible to go discuss that issue with the pastor.
I could be taking this way the wrong way with that, but that's the only way I can think of that would make us at all responsible for every sermon we've ever heard.
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